Simulation Studies for a new ATLAS Inner Detector for the High-Luminosity LHC

To maintain scientific progress, the LHC will require a major upgrade after 2020. The current plans include increasing the instantaneous luminosity by a factor of 5 (utilising luminosity levelling) beyond the original design value. This project is referred to as the HL-LHC (High Luminosity LHC), and its aim is to provide 3000 fb^{-1} of sqrt(s)=14 TeV proton-proton collisions in 10 to 12 years. The HL-LHC will be an extremely challenging experimental environment, with significantly higher particle fluxes, radiation doses and detector occupancies than experienced currently by the LHC experiments. The present ATLAS Inner Detector (ID) will not be suitable for operation in such conditions and will be completely replaced by a new, all-silicon Inner Tracker (ITk). The ITk must satisfy the following criteria, with respect to the current ID, in order to achieve the desired levels of physics performance: higher granularity, improved material budget and increased radiation hardness of the readout components. Currently, the ITk project is in its R&D phase. Various complex layout geometries are simulated in detail in order to study their tracking performance and search for the optimal tracker architecture to operate at HL-LHC. These studies will be presented, and their implications discussed.